


Spring and Winter

by cuddlesome



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux, Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: / throws Leroux canon and ALW canon into a blender/, Angst with a Happy Ending, Codependency, Fluff and Angst, Inspired by Hades and Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Jealous Erik, Multi, POV First Person, Pre-OT3, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 09:53:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23969416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuddlesome/pseuds/cuddlesome
Summary: We have an arrangement with our Christine, but... perhaps we overcomplicate things, you and I.
Relationships: Christine Daaé/Erik | Phantom of the Opera, Christine Daaé/Raoul de Chagny/Erik | Phantom of the Opera, Raoul de Chagny/Christine Daaé, Raoul de Chagny/Erik | Phantom of the Opera
Comments: 16
Kudos: 96





	Spring and Winter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dragimal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragimal/gifts).



> This is for my best friend's birthday! We watched the 25th anniversary version of POTO at her house a while back and she suggested this idea. Here's hoping I did it justice. :3c

I will miss her terribly. I always do.

She looks over her shoulder at me. And then she waves. Smiles. The aloof, uncaring attitude I put on whenever she leaves, a second mask, cracks. I gape at her like a fool until she turns back to you.

My fingers twitch and flex at my sides until I force them to still by folding my arms. It takes no small amount of self-control not to run after you both. Rip you from my girl. Shove your head underwater. Hold you there until the bubbles stop, no matter how much Christine cries. But then she shall never return to me again, no matter what the season.

When you two board the boat, she peeks back at me once more. Her eyes still hold a glazed over quality to them. Lips curl in a dreamy smile. She’s still drunk on my song, even when the last note has long since disappeared from the cavern. Does she suspect my violent thoughts towards you, her boy, in that moment? I think not. 

“Goodbye, Erik,” she calls.

“Goodbye, Christine,” I say, then address you. “Take care of her, Monsieur.”

“I will, Monsieur le Fantôme."

I lift a brow. Are we familiar enough for jesting, now?

But no, that perfect smile has sharp edges. Are you offended that I would think otherwise?

You soften once you look at Christine. Every time you come to fetch her, you seem surprised to find her unharmed. You cannot really believe I would ever do something so uncouth or else you wouldn’t leave her alone with me. 

I watch until you disappear in the darkness and mist, then listen for the telltale sounds of the disturbed water. Soon there is nothing but quiet and bluish-blackness. The reality crashes down. She shall be gone until late into next year. I’m all alone. I make a small, wounded-animal noise low in my throat. For a time, I pace the edge of the lake. I tear at my clothes and the exposed side of my face with my fingernails. I consider leaping in to go after her. In the darkness, I would almost certainly drown. Perhaps death would be preferable to experiencing more time alone. My Christine is nival flora, my one respite in the cold, but soon she’ll be up above with you in the sunshine. Such is the cycle we’ve had for the past few years.

The only thing that stops me from flinging myself into the frigid water is the thought of how much it will hurt Christine to discover my bloated corpse in the Seine. I force myself to go back inside of my home. The heat of the fire doesn’t penetrate to my bones nor my heart.

I compose for days and nights. The organ sobs beneath my relentless abuse. If Christine were here she would tell me not to push my body and mind so far. She would guide me to bed and sing to me until I gave in to slumber. When I awoke she would try to compel me to eat something straight from her little hands. 

Well, she isn’t here, is she? I stab my quill into a sheet of music hard enough to impale the paper. I am overcome with the desire to take all of the music I wrote since she left and upend my ink on top of it. Make it all bleed red. 

After some time, a sudden sensation of self-awareness comes over me. I stink of sweat. There’s bright red ink on every surface, including myself, save for, of course, my organ; even in the depths of my despair I won’t damage that. I stand and my bones crack horribly loudly. Bit by bit, step by step, I drag myself to the bathroom. Dimly, I become aware of a coppery smell beneath the smell of ink and parchment. Hm. Maybe it isn’t all ink. 

Even without a mirror, I can tell I’m a mess in multiple senses of the word. How had I not noticed before? Paradoxical as it is, I have a vain streak in me. It’s almost as if I have been outside of my body all this time. Like a ghost. Ha.

I need to clean myself up. I know not what the calendar day is, but I need to be in much better condition if she arrives. Should I encounter daroga, I don’t want him to find me in this state, either. 

After luxuriating in a bathwater that’s tinged red, then pink after I draw another, and a lighter shade still after another, I declare myself clean enough and get dressed. I should pop up to the surface to take my due from the managers. A grin curls my malformed lips as I straighten my tie. The poor fools must be worried sick after not hearing from their resident ghost for so long. 

The indignant fussing in response from them after I drop off a letter to Madame Giry about my salary is more than enough to put me in a good mood. I’ll be more irritated if they don’t pay me posthaste, of course, but for now getting them worked up is enough.

I return to my home through a secondary route that I’d built to bypass the lake. It’s more risky to have multiple ways to enter my domain, but I don’t want the possibility of Christine stranded on the wrong side of the lake because I took the boat. Just as I am about to enter the house, I pause at the sound of shifting water.

I’m so overcome that for a moment I wonder if my thoughts alone had summoned her. That wouldn’t make much sense, as I think of her often, but it occurred to me nonetheless. 

But no, it’s you, and you alone.

You haven’t had a change of heart and brought her back to me early. Of course not. Insufferable cockalorum.

“Don’t give me that look,” you call out as the boat nears me. “I’m here on behalf of Christine.”

An icy stab of fear goes through my gut, followed by anger that you would be so irresponsible to let something happen to her. You’re too far away for me to give in to the impulse to attack.

Instead, I pace the edge of the lake. “Is she all right? Is she safe?”

“Yes.” You hesitate. “She wanted me to check on you. Make sure you hadn’t drowned yourself.”

Ah, she knows me too well. She sensed that I contemplated that very thing.

“If she wanted to check on me, she would’ve come herself,” I say bitterly.

“If she came herself, you wouldn’t let her leave,” you counter as you reach the shore.

I say nothing because there isn’t much use in denying it.

For a long moment we two stare at each other. Did you nor Christine think very far into what this welfare check would entail?

“Don’t just stand there. Christine will never forgive me if you take ill loitering in this cold and dank.” I turn and, without waiting to see if you follow, enter my house.

Obviously concerned about the possibility of a trap, you take some time getting in to my sitting room. You stand in the doorway, apparently unsure of what to do with yourself. 

“So,” I say, pouring myself a glass of wine and not bothering with offering you any. “Tell me about her.”

You look away from me to stare at the fireplace instead. Then you proceed to spin a pretty tale about how the color has returned to Christine’s cheeks thanks to the sunlight and she goes to church with you every Sunday. Feh. She likes sweets more than a grown woman probably should, you say, so you get her an occasional treat to go with her tea. Despite the hot weather, she’s been wearing a well-worn red scarf lately. There’s a soft smile on your face as you recount that part. It gives me a distinct sense that I haven’t been made privy to some inside joke. Annoying, to say the least.

I realize that you’re staring at me. I abhor being stared at for obvious reasons.

“What?” I snap.

“I was just thinking,” you say, “how odd it is that Christine should love two markedly different men. And that she’d want to live in this place, if only part of the year, to be with you.”

You gesture around to indicate my house as if it’s a garbage heap. I regret inviting you in very much. Hitting you over the head with the wine bottle will probably kill you so I attempt to think of a less lethal means of harming you. 

“But I suppose we both love Christine,” you continue to muse, as if that’s some new revelation. “That much, at least, we have in common.” 

You couldn’t hope to love as deeply as me, but even I can admit it’s love nonetheless. A childish sort of love that subsists off of fairy tales and cookies alone.

“I see your affections as something more obsessed, but I suppose it isn’t my place to judge.” You’re saved from my wrath by a distraction as you pull out an envelope. “By the way, I have this for you—a letter from Christine.”

“What? Give it here,” I say. “Why didn’t you say as much before?”

To think you’ve been withholding it all this time with your meaningless conversation!

I snatch it away and hold it to myself. Christine, Christine! It even smells of her. 

You scoff and roll your eyes. “You’re welcome.”

I cease paying attention to you as I open up the letter, though I can see you investigating my books out of the corner of my vision. I hold it close to the firelight so that I can read her flowing script, so unlike my own stilted hand.

_Dear Angel,_

_I hope that this letter finds you well. I’ve sent Raoul to make sure that you haven’t grown ill as you did last year. I would come myself, but he insisted that he should be the one to come. It gladdens me that he’s concerned for your welfare._

Oh, Christine. Your naivete is equal parts endearing and maddening.

_I’ve been keeping up with singing, though I must say I miss practicing with you. We shall have to make up for lost time once I come to stay with you once more this winter._

Her letter goes on to describe the home where she’s living with you by the sea, how warm the sun is on her face, and the flowers that are in bloom there. I find one of them, a blossom from an ice plant, pressed inside of the envelope. Seeing her name with “Love” as the valediction warms my heart.

“I must write her a response,” I say more to myself than you.

I ready parchment and my writing supplies. The air is so wet beneath the opera house that the ink always runs, but I’ve adapted to it, pushing the heaviest of the ink back up with the quill if it drips too far.

You peek over my shoulder. “Who taught you how to write?”

“Self-taught,” I say stiffly. 

I’m aware that my penmanship isn’t the loveliest by any stretch and must appear doubly so to you.

“Do you mind?” I ask.

You hold up your hands defensively and retreat.

I compose a verbose letter to Christine, proclaiming my undying love and my hope that winter will arrive early so that I might see her face again. 

Midway through the letter, I happen to glance over at you. You’ve wandered back over to my books and are examining my collection of Chateaubriand’s works. Kinship with another vicomte, eh?

“I doubt _Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe_ would interest you. There are fairy tales in that corner,” I say with a wave to indicate it.

I mean the comment as a jab, but you actually nod and wander over to them. You’re a charming fool, I’ll give you that much. I can almost see what Christine sees in you.

I offer you some wine after all, but you turn down my kind gesture, no doubt suspicious of poison. I suppose I can’t blame you for that. 

After I’ve sealed the letter, I toss it in a fluttering arc across the room for you to scramble to catch.

“I shall be glad to tell Christine that you’re well,” you say.

“For now, anyway. Don’t keep her away a day past when it’s time or I shall die of grief.”

And then you leave. I wander outside of my house to watch you go, to make sure you don’t capsize the boat and drown my carefully constructed letter. Just before you disappear into the blue fog, you have the gall to wave at me. I almost return the gesture on instinct but save myself the embarrassment by adjusting my mask.

I return indoors. I don’t miss you a fraction as much as I miss Christine, but oddly I do find myself missing you just a bit. Probably just desperation to see another human being. A bout of madness. I should go bother the managers again as a form of therapy.

Days, weeks, months pass. 

The day of her arrival closes in. I have to at least pretend that I haven’t been abusing myself all this time. I clean my house from top to bottom, take a long, luxurious bath, and dress in my finest formal wear. Then I go out to pace the edge of the underground lake, all day if need be.

Mercifully, you don’t keep me waiting long. 

The moment the boat touches the shore, Christine cries out with delight and leaps into my arms. Dear God, my back! The force of her affection proves overwhelming.

I smile through the pain. “Be gentle with your Erik, Christine. He’s not as spry as he used to be.”

Her consequent fussing over me makes it worth it.

And then she turns back to you as you step off of the boat. She takes your hands in hers. 

“Goodbye for now, Raoul. I love you.” 

Her voice wavers with tears and I catch the sound of a sniffle. Once again I feel myself cast in the role of villain at being the cause of this separation. 

“And I love you, Christine.” You kiss her on both cheeks and the tip of her nose, prompting a giggle. “I will think about you always until we’re together again.”

Seeing how much you adore her touches something inside of me I had long thought dark and withered. 

“Would you…” I hesitate. “…like to stay as well?”

You stare at me, dumbstruck. I must admit I’m shocked at myself. Christine, however, seems delighted with the idea. She lets go of one of your hands and takes one of mine so that we’re in a line.

“Perhaps,” Christine volunteers, grinning as she looks back and forth between us, “he could stay for a while… and you could come up above with us in the spring.”

“One is easier than the other, dear,” I murmur.

Already I can picture prying eyes gawking at my mask, never mind what lays beneath.

“Is it?” You ask. “Staying with you in a confined space is a challenge all its own.”

You’re teasing, I know it this time. I scoff and turn my head away to disguise the smile creeping onto my lips.

Given some time, I think I could tolerate you, maybe even like you. Maybe. That all depends on how you conduct yourself with Christine and I.

“How inconvenient,” I grumble. “I haven’t made a room up for you. Come now. We shall have to put something together.”

And I march into the house with Christine’s hand in mine and yours in hers.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I’d love to see any and all comments.


End file.
